


You Can Do Better Than That

by Ishti



Category: Aveyond
Genre: Aveyond 3, Aveyond: The Lost Orb, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Truth or Dare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 01:39:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17736611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishti/pseuds/Ishti
Summary: The orb hunters take a little break around the fire. Mel heats up.Winter Exchange gift for Crystallineflowers!





	You Can Do Better Than That

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crystallineflowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystallineflowers/gifts).



Night had just fallen over the Bristle Woods. Low winds moaned ominously over the crests of treacherous cliffs. A gentle mist replaced what was earlier a torrential downpour obscuring the upper boughs of the coniferous trees, allowing weary, battle-spent travelers a rare opportunity to stoke flames after a lengthy hunt for dry tinder.

Mel, Edward, Yvette, June, Ulf, and Spook sat around the fire in that order. While the others finished supper, Ulf was telling a grand story about how he once got accidentally strapped to a galloping pack-beast and dragged all across the desert by his ankles for three hours. Mel had firmly established a comfortable foot-and-a-half radius of personal space around herself, but Edward had failed to do the same, and Yvette, a little tipsy on Harakaunan hooch, bumped and elbowed him at leisure.

“...it finally bucked so hard when it saw a lizard crossing the eastern road that I was pitched above its head, my feet slipping from my boots. I flew ten yards forward before finally hitting the ground!” Ulf took a sip of water as he concluded his tale. “I can still taste the dust in my gullet.”

While only Mel was looking, June stole a swig of Yvette’s brew and immediately gagged. Mel raised her eyebrows.  _ What did you expect? _

Edward cringed charitably, shaking his head as if he, too, could taste the dust in Ulf’s gullet. “Wow. I can’t imagine getting thrown like that.”

Mel sniffed. “Yeah; you must have flipped, what, five times?”

“I was shot straight, like an arrow across the desert,” replied Ulf, solemn.

Edward shook his head. “I can’t imagine what that was like.”

“Ed.” Mel rolled her eyes. “A shadow knight practically buried you in the Stonetooth Cavern wall today.”

She couldn’t see it in the near-absolute dark, but she could almost feel Edward blush in the heat of the crackling firelight. “Oh… yeah. Okay. I guess that did happen to me.”

“There’s a hole like six feet deep in that stone now,” snickered June, trying not to cough.

“Aw, it’s not  _ that _ deep....”

“It took two ropes to pull you out,” Spook reminded him, absolutely relishing in it just a little bit. Yvette launched into a fit of giggles.

Edward huffed, then chuckled. “You guys are never gonna let me live that one down, are you?”

Mel grinned, feeling her smile soften as she turned to look at her best friend, his face aglow in the emberlight. “Nope.”

“All right, all right.”

A bullfrog croaked, its throaty call echoing through a rotting log somewhere in the sodden distance. Mel indelicately sucked the last of the meat from a chicken thigh and tossed the bone carelessly behind her. With a belch and a contented sigh, she shut her eyes and let the cool mist clean her face.

“Should we turn in for the night?” suggested Ulf.

Immediately, June slapped his shoulder. “You  _ kidding? _ The sun went down half an hour ago!”

“Well, it would be wise to rise early.”

“We should get the jump on the pig warriors while they’re still asleep,” pointed out Spook. Ulf nodded.

“Then we’ll rise early!” Yvette whined. “But you pillbugs  _ always _ want to go to sleep early, too! We need to have a little fun!”

“Hmm.” Mel adjusted her position atop the log pile and watched her companions squabble with a smirk.

“Mainland research  _ does _ suggest that a healthy diet of ‘fun’ makes laborers and soldiers more effective in their respective professions,” said Edward, mirth and irony sprinkling his tone.

Ulf’s ears twitched. “That is a compelling argument.”

“Let’s play a game!” giggled Yvette.

“All right. But I might be out of practice.” Mel unsheathed her knife.

Edward hastily reached into her personal space and pressed the knife back into its sheath. “Uh, no, no, not that game.”

“Oh. Well, be specific, then.”

“Spin the Bottle.” Yvette fixed Edward with an unnerving simper.

“Not that one, either, please.”

“Aww, why not? Struck with a case of princely prudishness?” June grinned, too, baring all of her teeth.

Edward swallowed. “Um.”

“I think you a-a-are.”

“Oh, I think he is!”

“We should just kiss him now, rip off the bandage--”

“What about Ravwyn Roulette?”

Everyone around the fire turned to stare at Spook.

“What?”

June rolled her eyes. “Okay, mood killed. We’re playing Truth or Dare.”

Mel sat forward. “Dare, huh? I’m listening.”

“What are the rules?” asked Edward, audibly relieved.

“Well,” said June, “we go around the circle, and each person picks another person and asks them ‘truth or dare?’ The other person can pick ‘truth’, to answer any question honestly, or ‘dare’, to do any one action right then and there. We play it all the time in the dorms at school. I’ve stolen so-o-o much stuff.”

“Did you make a profit, though?” muttered Mel. Edward chuckled.

“I want to go first!” declared Yvette. “Ulf! Truth or dare?”

Ulf scratched behind an ear. “Truth.”

Yvette slumped her shoulders, disappointed. “He was supposed to say ‘dare’.”

“You can’t  _ make _ him say ‘dare’,” chided June.

“Fine. Ulf… what is… the strangest thing you have ever eaten?”

“The strangest thing I have ever eaten.” Ulf tilted his head to the sky and rubbed his chin, pensive. “Hmm. I suppose that would have to be--ah. Apple pie.”

_ “...apple pie?” _

“Yes. It was a mess of carbohydrates that stuck in my mouth and fruits treated in a coating of unnatural syrups--and all of it cooked to--there is no scientific way to say this--to  _ gloop.” _

Mel found herself grinning. She glanced up at Edward, who was already stealing a peek down at her. They both remembered that day clear as crystal. It was a very good pie, and a very good laugh they had together.

Yvette huffed. “Okay. Fine. I guess it’s Edward’s turn.”

Ed bit his lip. Mel watched his eyes flash to her again; for a second, she thought he was going to pick her, and she leaned in, anticipating a good dare, a fun prank--something uniquely Edwardian.

“Spook. Truth or dare?”

_ Oh. _

“Dare.” Spook raised an eyebrow.

“Okay. I dare you to… jump over the fire.”

Mel groaned. “There’s hardly any fire left!” she complained, gesturing at the gradually fading embers.

“So put in another log,” said Edward. “You’re sitting on them.”

“Right.” Mel extracted a log from the pile beneath her and eased it into the fire, which crackled and spit with excitement. Ulf tossed in a little more kindling, and the fire danced to a respectable couple of feet in the air within seconds.

“Okay, creepster,” said June, nodding her head at Spook. “You’re up.”

Spook shrugged. Without a word, he backed up to the treeline, took a running start, and leapt over the flames, hugging his knees to his chest at the apex of his jump. Mel scrambled out of the way as he landed with a smooth roll.

“Show-off,” muttered Edward.

“You did tell him to do it,” Mel reminded him.

“He could have at least had the decency to light himself on fire.”

“Mel’s turn!” piped Yvette.

“Oh. Um….” Mel glanced around the circle. Ed didn’t pick her, so she felt less inclined to pick him right back. Spook just had a turn, as did Ulf. Daring June to steal something would be a lot of fun, but they were far from heedless civilization and she should probably  _ pretend _ to be a good mentor anyway. That left the one person who had something she wanted at that moment--”Yvette.”

“Ooh, me!”

“Truth or dare?”

“Dare!”

“Dare you--wait. I  _ double _ dare you to finish that whole bottle of booze without breathing.”

Yvette gasped. “What’s a  _ double _ dare?”

“If you win, I do whatever you say,” said Mel, inventing a rule on the fly. She heard June snicker. “If you can’t do it, I get the rest of the bottle.”

“Ooh, you’re on!”

Yvette pinched her nose and took a deep, exaggerated breath through her mouth. She put the bottle to her lips and began to chug. Within ten seconds, she pulled it away, gasping for air.

“I can’t do it! I’m a sparrow, not a fish!”

Mel reached across Edward to grab the bottle, feeling for just a second his breath on her shoulder. She tried to ignore it as she snatched her prize and retreated to her personal space. “You could have just taken the normal dare, you know.”

“I didn’t know!”

The bottle glimmered in the firelight as Mel raised it in a mock toast to her opponent. She took a swig of the hooch and tried not to cough. It was  _ strong. _

“Mel, there’s something on your back,” said June.

“Huh?” Mel slapped at her shoulderblade.

“Um… no, there isn’t,” said Edward.

“Oh. It’s just that you were staring at her back that whole time,” explained June, pointedly. Edward shifted a little farther away, clearing his throat.

“It’s Spook’s turn,” said Ulf.

“Edward.” Spook crossed his arms. “Truth or dare?”

“Um… truth.”

Spook looked nearly as surprised as Mel felt. Ed, turning down a dare? Maybe just because it was Spook--Mel did have to keep them apart sometimes to preempt violent outbursts.

“All right. Truth. Truth, truth.” Spook sounded bored. “So. Did you really want to marry Stella?”

Mel heard the sound of armor shifting beside her. She could almost feel the sudden tension in every joint in Ed’s body. He exhaled. “No.”

Something warmer than the Harakaunan hooch slipped down her chest. He…  _ didn’t? _

“Interesting,” murmured Spook.

“Ulf is next!” chirped June, her voice bright.

“I pick you, Bug,” Ulf said.

“Ohoho, finally! Dare!”

“I dare you to climb that tree--” Ulf pointed “--and set off a firework.”

June scoffed. “Are you kidding? Do you want us to get  _ swarmed _ by pig warriors?”

“If they can find us.”

“They’re weak anyway,” said Mel, trying to shrug away the strange giddiness in her lungs. “Do you want practice training or not?”

“All ri-i-ight,” said June, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you weirdos.”

June bounded off towards the tree of Ulf’s choice. Mel shivered and scooted a little closer to the fire, watching her charge scramble through the branches. Spook, Ulf, and Yvette all sat around the fire with her, but for some reason, all she could feel was Ed, his presence next to her pounding like a second heartbeat. She heard him breathe under the whispering flames, heard the movements of his hands and his mouth beneath the quilt of crickets. Even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t block him out, and she didn’t want to. Not at all.

_ Krak-ka-BOOM! _

“Ee-hee-hee!”

June gracelessly descended from the tree as noisy pink fireworks illuminated the night sky. Edward sighed; Mel heard him pawing around the grass beside her.

“Mel. Have you seen my baldric?”

Mel leaned a little to her right, grasping at the ground. Her fingers found the leather straps immediately. “Here.”

“Ugh, thanks. I can’t see anything.”

“You’re useless in the dark. Let me get this.” As if she were tacking a horse, Mel buckled the baldric around Edward’s torso and tightened it to fit snug against his armor. She was focused; everything else she thought or felt was forgotten as she strapped in her hopeless best friend like she had a hundred times or more before.

She did feel herself blush a little when he laughed self-consciously, his eyes cast down at their knees, but that was easy to ignore.

Ed shrugged his shoulders one at a time to test the fit, and Mel backed off to her designated personal space, feeling suddenly quite cold. The hooch had kicked in thoroughly, and she moved as if in a slow pudding. She blinked the lethargy from her eyes and noted that June was back. She noted, as well, that everyone around the fire was staring at her.

“Something on my back again?” she grumbled.

“You’re good,” replied Spook, resigned.

“No pig warriors yet,” reported Yvette.

“Great! It’s my turn, then,” said June. Something conspiratorial crept into her tone. “Mel. You haven’t gone yet. Truth or dare?”

With a roll of her eyes, Mel said, “Dare.”

“Kiss Edward.”

Mel blinked.

“Kiss… Edward?”

“Kiss. Edward.”

Part of Mel thought,  _ this is humiliating and absolutely none of their business, and I don’t want some prince anyway; I’m a thief, not a princess, _ and another part thought  _ you were waiting for an excuse to kiss him anyway so I don’t see why not, _ and another part thought  _ it’s just a game, it doesn’t mean anything, _ and all of those parts were surprised to find that they were entirely irrelevant in the face of the reality that she’d already scooted forward on her knees and steadied his chin in her hand and kissed him fully and without reserve.

It felt, she thought, exactly as if they’d kissed like this every day since the first day they’d met.

When she let him go (or, more accurately, when they let each other go, because he’d reached up and entangled a gentle but firm hand in the hair at the nape of her neck), Mel felt calm,  _ correct. _ She nudged his nose with hers and deposited herself in his lap like it was a chair carved especially for her. With a smirk to match Edward’s grin, she met June’s shocked eyes.

“You can do better than that.”

Ed kissed the side of her forehead. “Does this mean we win Truth or Dare?”

“That’s… n… n--” squeaked June.

“Pig warriors approach,” warned Ulf.

“May I kiss him next?” asked Yvette.

Mel and Edward simultaneously fixed her with a hard stare.  _ “No.” _

“Oh… you made it look so easy.”

Spook rose to his feet. “Did you not  _ hear? _ Pig warriors  _ approach.” _

“Okay, okay.” Edward stood, lifting Mel with him. She couldn’t hide her smile as he dropped her onto her feet. “The usual tactics, Fearless Leader?”

“Yeah.” Mel gazed at him as their adversaries blundered and crashed through the woods toward them. “Don’t change a thing, Ed.”


End file.
